California Debating Road Ahead for Driverless Trucks
August 29, 2023
California is seeing heated political debate about allowing driverless trucks on its roadways, with one camp favoring speedy authorization to support technological competitiveness and the other worried about how truck drivers and communities will be affected. Sociologist Steve Viscelli would favor humans over technology. “The questions that should shape the future of trucking are not simply about how technology can increase productivity and reduce shipping costs and time,” he argues in Issues. “They are about the lives and compensation of human truckers, road infrastructure, and trucking’s environmental impacts. Policy in all these areas will shape how self-driving technology develops.”